Bruce Arians doesn’t like Thursday night games

Posted by Curtis Crabtree on October 15, 2013, 10:41 PM EDT

AP

In a span of five days the Arizona Cardinals will have had to play on the road against the San Francisco 49ers and at home against the Seattle Seahawks. That’s two pivotal divisional matchups for the Cardinals to prepare for in such a short time period.

Cardinals’ head coach Bruce Arians isn’t a fan of the setup.

Arians joined Alex Marvez and Bill Polian on Sirius XM NFL Radio Tuesday to discuss their game with the Seahawks and voiced his displeasure for Thursday night games in general.

“I’m not a fan of Thursday night football,” Arians said.

“I don’t think he’s really fair to the players, especially the veteran players. We finished up most of our game plan and practice today, which would be a normal players’ day off.”

Arians said the team has already had two practices after a hard-fought loss to the 49ers on Sunday. Tuesday, which is usually a players’ day off, consisted of another practice and meetings to prepare for Seattle. Wednesday will be a combination of Friday and Saturday’s work before heading to the team hotel on Wednesday night.

The work week is significantly truncated and makes it difficult for even healthy players to recover to feel ready to play.

“Veteran players, their bodies, this is really, really hard on them,” Arians said. “So many times over the course of the last 10 years, I’ve seen guys that could not play on Thursday that could play on Sunday and that’s really hard on a football team.”

Former Seahawks fullback Michael Robinson echoed those sentiments prior to their Thursday night game against the 49ers a year ago.

“Go get in a car accident and go try to play a few days later. That’s how it feels,” Robinson said.

49ers receiver Anquan Boldin has also recently criticized the games as being hypocritical when the league is touting player safety initiatives only to have players play two games in five days.

With the league looking to possibly add more Thursday night games, it certainly doesn’t seem as though the games will be going away anytime soon. The players will just have to deal with it.

The league is not going to drop their Thursday night games, but at least they should not be sandwiching in 2 divisional games on the short week. The Cards have to play the Niners and Seahawks over a 5 day stretch which sucks, but at least the travel is not very far. The Niners had to play Seattle and then travel to St Louis to play the Rams 4 days later. They should stick with out of conference games for both the game before and the Thursday game itself.

I don’t necessarily agree with Thursday night games, and think they are usually a sub-par product. However, to say that the Cardinals have a short amount of time to prepare for 2 division rivals is factually incorrect.

They had the normal amount of time to prepare for San Francisco, and they had a short amount of time to prepare for Seattle. Then, they will have a longer time to prepare for their next opponent.

Nobody like these Thursday night games it seems. I guess the only benefit is that you get a couple extra days to prepare for the next opponent, and since Seattle then plays St Louis on Monday Night Football in week 8, they should have the perfect gameplan. Go Hawks!

It leads to sloppy football, which is not as entertaining to watch. Plus, it gets very low ratings because many people draw the line at paying extra to get one channel for 12 months mostly so they can just see the one game their team is on every year.

The road team basically gets two days off – well, not really off, as they start prep work the next morning with zero recovery time – and then has a travel day. In this case, it’s going to be about 96 hours from the end of the last game to the kickoff for this game.

I wish fans could petition the end of Thursday night games as well……They only do this because of the NFL network….Lets talk about player safety and at the same time talk about expanding the number of games in a season and now having more Thursday night games…….Next brilliant move will probably be to say hey lets make them travel to London for a Thursday night game…….This is what happens to people in power that make decisions, they get dumber as the common folk say what are they thinking. Heck why don’t we just move every super bowl and the hall of fame to London? MORONS!

Silly question, why is Thursday game such a bugaboo with regards to safety. When any idiot can see, that a large pct of the players do not wear a properly fit helmet. Why noone brings this issue up is beyond me.

Wait, so no comments about how Arians is a “whiner”? Last I checked he had nothing to do with the 9ers. Yet Boldin says the same thing about Thursday night games and the football world outside of San Francisco complains about they are the only ones “whining”.

I don’t like Thursday games.
I don’t like the rule about the Hard Knocks programme.

Dude, stop whingeing and get on with it. The rules are the rules. Thursday games and Hard Knocks help to generate more revenue for the NFL and the owners, which in turn means more money they can put into your salary.

If you really don’t like it, find a job outside of the NFL…and one that pays as well as your current role.

Cry me a river Arians. One of my self-policies is “never feel sorry for a millionaire”. You want to coach in the big NFL suck it up and start acting like a man. The players are being cry babies when they complain about similar things. Geaux Saints!

On the right hand, Goodell pushes player safety. On the left hand, he pushes playing on 3 days rest. Those two things are diametrically opposed to each other, and reeks of continued hypocrisy by the NFL, their owners, and their leadership. And, to that end, even the NFLPA.

What used to be a Thanksgiving Day treat has become an every Thursday moneymaker for the NFL, even though it is not good for the players. PROTECT THE SHIELD only goes as far as the pockets of the NFL and owners.